The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in partnership with the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) and the University of Zambia (UNZA) will host a “Public Policy Cycles for Family Farming Training Program for State and Non-State Actors in Zambia” in Siavonga, Zambia from 25 – 29 April, 2022. The training will complement other capacity building efforts by various actors in the country for agricultural policy formulation for government officials, private sector, academia, among others. 

The aim of the training is to increase the capacities of distinct actors in Zambia while providing them with versatile tools, instruments, and competencies to build, implement, monitor and evaluate relevant, effective, and context specific family-centered policies. This will be achieved by creating a connection between policy theory and concrete practices that have been successfully applied around the world.

The training is based on the “Learning framework for inclusive, integrated and innovative public policy cycles for family farming” developed by the FAO and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) under the framework of the United Nations Decade of Family Farming 2019-2028.

FAO and RUFORUM have been collaborating on several activities through a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2017 and renewed in 2020. The partnership recognizes the central role of family farming in agricultural innovation, as the agent of change for eliminating hunger and ensuring food security and nutrition, and the need for support towards an enabling policy environment backed by strong and sustained political commitment. Therefore, the partnership seeks to build on developing national programs on public policy and processes for family farming. The Zambia training program follows a similar course held in Uganda in November 2021.

In the last few years, the focus of the partnership has been on identifying challenges in accessing appropriate technologies, effect of COVID-19 on livelihoods, access to and use of digital technologies, skills enhancement in entrepreneurship and agri-business management for family farmers, among others.